On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted and left miles of land looking virtually lifeless. Three years later, scientists tried a weird—and kinda adorable—recovery plan: bring in the gophers!

That unlikely rescue mission is the heart of Pop Mech’s story, “43 Years Ago, Scientists Dropped Gophers Onto a Volcano. Today, They’re Tiny Heroes.” And somehow, yes, the gophers really did save the day.

After the eruption, plant life was barely coming back in parts of the blast zone. So scientists placed the gophers on small test plots for just one day, hoping their digging would churn up buried soil, bacteria, and fungi that had survived below the devastation.

Watch Pop Mech editors John Gilpatrick and Andrew Daniels discuss this story, and why the unconventional experiment worked so well. The gophers helped revive a hidden underground network of mycorrhizal fungi, which gave plants the support they needed to grow again.

The wildest part? More than four decades later, that effect is still visible. We salute you, gophers.

Watch the full episode above now, and find more installments of “The Astounding Pop Mech Show” on PopularMechanics.com.